


Tripping, Into the Wild

by albinococonut23



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Adventure, Camping, Crack, Gen, Hitchhiking, Road Trips, Sho's life is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-13
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-13 01:08:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2131368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albinococonut23/pseuds/albinococonut23
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aiba and Ohno are all for roughing it in the wilderness, Nino has a dangerous streak they all –aside from Ohno- secretly fear, Jun is an over-packing diva, and Sho is failtastic with a side of bad judgment. What could go wrong?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tripping, Into the Wild

Arashi as five friends, not as a band, had decided to go on a road trip. Well, the focus was more on their  _destination_  than the method it would take them to get there. “Let’s go camping!” Aiba had said when they’d decided to do something together with their long weekend off.   
  
Taking one car –although that would have been more fun- was not an option, as MatsuJun refused to take any less than three suitcases and all of his hair products, and that meant only one other person would able to squeeze into his vehicle with him.  
  
Ohno wasn’t allowed to drive because he tended to space out or fall asleep behind the wheel, so he was riding with Nino in the Ninomiya family’s old pick-up truck. The truck was old, broke down on a monthly basis, and was generally a road hazard waiting to happen (Jun claimed it already was, as it was a garish rusty orange color with peeling paint, which he said just glancing at made him want to push it into a ravine –Nino dangled  _him_  over the ravine the one time he tried it). It also only had two seats, and Nino had demanded that his Oh-chan be the one to ride with him. Ohno hadn’t refused, and although the others were afraid the brakes would fail and they’d get lost in the woods somewhere and Nino would end up eating Ohno to survive (Aiba came up with the story, but they all secretly feared it), nobody was willing to mess with Nino and so they let him have his way.  
  
All in all, this left Sho alone, in his shiny new car that wasn’t really appropriate for camping trips (though, then again, neither was Jun’s sleek white convertible). Realizing he could choose between riding with Sho or the youngest member of the group, Aiba had quickly hopped into the convertible. He even knew that they’d end up being later than everyone else because of Jun’s insistence he get the car washed at nearly every second gas station they passed, but he was willing to put his enthusiasm to reach the campsite on hold rather than get in any vehicle with Sho  _ever_.  
  
Sho felt that he should be insulted, but mostly he was just lonely. He understood where they were coming from. He was probably more dangerous than Nino’s truck… Well, only if he didn’t consider who was  _driving_  the truck, but that was really a different matter entirely. He didn’t like driving, really. He knew he wasn’t very good at it for one thing, and being aware of this made him panic, and when he panicked he got stressed and irritable and tense. Not fun, in other words.  
  
He drove too slow, overly cautiously, and was afraid to have the radio on at all lest it distract him. Having other people in the car distracted him too, and when he was alone he frequently got sidetracked by his thoughts. He dreaded driving at night because it made him even jumpier, and he hated driving in the rain because it meant he had to have the wipers on, and it was hard not to stare at them swishing back and forth instead of the road.  
  
So, either because he was putting their lives in danger, or because he snapped at anyone who so much as spoke one word if they were in his car, or because he was brutally slow and let everyone go ahead of him rather than drive as was normal (and probably safer too), none of his friends wanted to ride with him… And so he was alone, and feeling lonely and a little down about himself.  
  
Nino was way ahead of him, having taken off the second Ohno shut the passenger door behind himself. Nobody knew if he heard or listened to Jun’s cry of “SEATBELTS!” behind them, though Aiba was skeptical about whether the old vehicle even  _had_  them. As Sho plodded along the highway, he kept passing Jun and Aiba whenever they stopped to clean the dirt and bugs off the car (and buy snacks, in Aiba’s case) but they always passed him again a little while later.   
  
The worst of it was that the highway straightened and flattened out. It had gradually become divided with only the occasional gentle twist or turn, and in the middle of nowhere like they were now, he was only sharing the road with one red van way ahead and a bluish green junk box of a car behind- oh, no wait, they were passing him too. Sho scowled. He couldn’t afford to get pulled over (not that there were any police around anyway) so he was sticking adamantly to a speed of 80 km/h in a 100 zone. It was safer that way, he believed. But regardless, he actually was feeling rather at ease about his presence on the road. Away from the city he didn’t have to worry about heavy traffic or pedestrians or stop signs or amber lights that always seemed to turn red before he could find the brakes. If the others were with him, he imagined he could even manage some conversation without snapping anyone’s head off or veering into another lane, and thinking that when he was so utterly by  _himself_  made him feel even more lonely than before.  
  
The sun was out, bearing down on his black car and creating weird heat waves on the dusty gray pavement ahead of him. He was glad for his air conditioning, and wondered briefly if Nino and Ohno were suffocating with the heat in the ancient orange truck. Momentarily distracted by his thoughts, he nearly swerved into the concrete divider when his attention came back to the road and he saw a white-haired old lady standing on the shoulder ahead. At first, he assumed he must be seeing things, a mirage brought on by the heat, but she was still there when he blinked, holding a sweater and a big purse in one hand and the thumb on the other jutting out at arm’s length towards the road. She was flushed, her white hair tied up in a bun was sticking to her forehead, and the rest of it was hidden under a floppy straw sun hat. The red van and the bluish green car had already passed her by without a second glance, disappearing around a bend up ahead, but Sho  _had_  already hit the brakes in alarm upon seeing her… He thought he might as well slow to a complete stop since he’d already started.  
  
Now, Sho knew better than to pick up hitchhikers. He really did.  
  
He wasn’t an idiot after all (he  _had_  attended Keio University, as he frequently reminded people), and everyone knew the dangers of picking up sketchy people on the sides of roadways, but this was a little old lady! And at a quarter to one in the afternoon, it was boiling hot out! What kind of idol would Sho be if he left someone’s grandmother on the side of a highway to pass out from heatstroke and have all her money stolen. You could die out in the middle of nowhere like this!  
  
Blinker on, he eased himself to a stop on the shoulder a little ways from where she was standing.  
  
The old woman looked very pleasantly surprised, jogging over and clambering in the passenger side with surprising agility for someone of her age. “Thank you very much!” She exclaimed, sighing as she leaned back in the seat and the air conditioning system shot at her on full blast. “I’m lucky to have met such a nice young man like you, aren’t I? I’ve been out there for hours trying to get a ride and  _no one_  would stop for me!”  
  
“That’s terrible…” Sho agreed with an air of distraction, nervously pulling back out onto the road. Nobody was around at all, but he still did four shoulder-checks to be sure. “I’m Sakurai Sho.”  
  
“Nice to meet you Sakurai-kun, I’m Toda Minako.”  
  
Sho glanced briefly at her from the corner of his eye. He liked this old lady who had a quirky bit of spunk to her… She kind of reminded him of Aiba, and he wondered vaguely if they could possibly be related. Now  _that_  would be a strange coincidence. “You don’t recognize me?”  
  
“No, do you recognize  _me?”_  
  
Sho frowned, looking at her again. Now that was an odd response… She didn’t look like any sort of celebrity he could think of, and if she  _was_ , by chance, related to Aiba, then surely she would have to recognize him to be asking such a question. “No…” He answered, confused. “Should I?”  
  
“I should hope not.” She laughed. “So where are you going?”  
  
“Camping.” He answered, deciding that if she wasn’t famous she was probably just a little eccentric. “With some of my friends.”  
  
She glanced into the empty backseat and laughed at him; it was a distinctly mocking sound. “Imaginary ones?”  
  
He frowned. “No, I’m meeting them there.”  
  
“Soon?”  
  
“It’ll take another hour or so to get there.”  
  
She smiled smugly, looking out the window. “I see…”  
  
Sho was more than a little confused by her behavior. His opinion of her was beginning to change from eccentric to mentally unstable. “So…” He said after a long stretch of silence while she smiled at nothing and dug around in her bag. “Where do you want me to drop you off?...”  
  
“I’m the only one who’s going to be doing any dropping, actually.” She replied sweetly, and Sho looked over in confusion to see that she was holding a revolver, and it was trained steadily on him.  
  
He let out a shocked curse, swerving and barely righting himself to prevent flying off into the ditch. “What are you- what are you doing?!” He exclaimed, though he knew it was pretty obvious.  
  
She looked mildly alarmed by his manic driving but her aim with the gun didn’t waver. “Calm down! You do what I say and I won’t shoot you, all right?”  
  
Sho nodded fervently, suddenly wanting to cry for being such an idiot. If he got shot Johnny-san was going to  _kill_  him!  
  
“Good.” She glanced around, still keeping the gun trained on him. Sho also looked in his side and rearview mirrors. Still, nobody was around. “All right, pull over on the side of the road.” She instructed and he obeyed. “Put it in ‘park’.” She smiled as he did so. “Okay, hands up!” She chirped cheerily. “Get out of the car slowly and keep your hands above your head.”  
  
Slowly Sho pushed his door open. He considered trying to run for only the briefest of seconds before he reconsidered. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide. They’d passed a gas station not long before he stopped to pick the woman up, but it would take him ages to walk there in this heat, and she’d shoot him before he got more than a car’s length away anyhow. As he stood by the car, she got out too and instructed him to come around and stand beside her while she opened the trunk and went through his things. There wasn’t much of value in his bag, but she took a couple brand name shirts and a silver chain and shoved them into her own purse before tossing his bag onto the gravel shoulder behind him.   
  
She turned her attention to him then, still standing with his arms stretched above his head. Smiling, she reached out and plucked the sunglasses off of his face to put them over her own eyes before stepping back with the gun still pointed at him lazily. “All right, strip down dear.”  
  
Sho’s eyes went from squinting at the sun to bugging out of his head. This was  _not_  happening. “What?!”  
  
She frowned disapprovingly at him. “You said you’d do whatever I told you.”  
  
“But-“  
  
“I’m no pervert dear, I’m a thief. I’m assuming you don’t go anywhere in a car as flashy as this one without carrying some cash on you.” She gestured towards the rectangular bulge of his wallet in his jeans pocket. “Take them off, and the shirt too.”  
  
He undid his belt, slipping the denim off reluctantly and handing the pants to her before starting to pull his shirt over his head. “Why the shirt though? I don’t get it.”  
  
She set the pants down on top of the car, taking the black t-shirt and abruptly pushing him down to his knees. “You’re talking too much.” She said, twisting the black material into a thin strip. “Say ‘ah’!” grudgingly he did so, and she shoved the cotton shirt in his mouth, pulling it taught and tying it tightly behind his head. “Good boy.” She pat him lightly on the top of his skull and set to rummaging through the pockets of his jeans. She took his wallet, some spare change, and his cellphone before tossing the pants down next to his discarded bag and proceeding to pull a length of rope from her purse.  
  
….  
  
A minute later and Sho was kneeling on the gravel, gagged and bound with his wrists tied to his ankles, wearing nothing but his boxer shorts, and watching the woman speed away in his shiny black car.  
  
This, he decided, was bad. Very,  _very_ , bad.  
  
The sun was high above him, and in the open like he was there was absolutely no shade. The minutes ticked by slowly, back aching from being arched painfully for so long and knees stinging as the sharp gravel dug into them. He could feel himself burning, the skin on his scalp and back and neck heated to the point where it was uncomfortable and he was surely going to be red and sore as a result, and all the occasional light breeze did was blow dust in his eyes and nose that he couldn’t wipe away and that made it difficult to breath in the humid air.  
  
It seemed like forever had gone by without any change in the scenery. Sho was afraid he would be cooked alive in the heat, and mistook every passing crow or sparrow for a circling vulture. In truth, only ten minutes passed before he caught sight of another car speeding up the cracked pavement towards him. Dust in his eyes, he squinted painfully to see but the tears that had welled up against the intruding particles made everything blurry and impossible to make much of. The vehicle was white though, and fast.  
  
 _SO_  fast that it sped right by him.  
  
Luckily, the driver hit the brakes a moment later, stopped dead in the middle of the highway to peer back at him, and then pulled a U-turn.  
  
If his mouth hadn’t been full of soggy cotton, Sho would have sighed in relief.  
  
However, much of that relief evaporated when the first he could discern of the car’s passengers was a familiar voice.  
  
“See, Jun-kun? I  _told_  you it was Sho!”  
  
Aiba and Jun… Sho was never going to hear the end of this.  
  
He heard the convertible’s doors opening and closing as they both got out and began untying him, asking curious and concerned questions that ended in much laughter at his expense and Sho’s cheeks turning redder even than his sunburn.  
  
“How could you be so stupid, Sho?” Jun chided, thumping him on the head and proceeding to dig around in his second suitcase for a shirt he was willing to loan him while Sho’s own black one had a big blotch of wet saliva in the middle of it.  
  
“I’m not stupid…” Sho grumbled, pulling his pants on awkwardly and leaning on Aiba to keep from losing his balance and either toppling into the ditch or face first onto the asphalt. He barely refrained from mentioning the university that he’d graduated from as evidence of his intellect.  
  
“You’re lucky we stopped at that car wash, otherwise you could have died out here! I thought _everybody_  knew better than to pick up hitchhikers!” Jun continued to rant, tossing him a dark purple D&G polo shirt before heading back to climb into the driver’s seat. “Even  _Aiba_  knows better!”  
  
“Of course I do!” Aiba frowned and laughed, looking up from examining the rope burn on Sho’s wrists with fascination and proceeding to get into the passenger seat. “I’m not _four_.”  
  
Sho scowled, pulling the shirt dejectedly over his head. When  _Aiba_  was mocking you, it was a sure sign that you’d done something  _really_  moronic. “I know better too…” he complained. “I was just… sick of driving by myself…”  
  
“Well, at least you managed to solve that problem.” Jun rolled his eyes, starting up the engine. “Put your stuff in the back.”  
  
Sho did, squeezing his bag in the trunk amongst mounds of gel and hairspray bottles among other products and torturous looking metal objects that were probably for curling or flipping or something that Sho had little idea how to do himself. He almost asked Jun why he’d bothered, considering Ohno had insisted they do this the outdoorsman way and thus had brought the biggest tent he owned (it was surprisingly large, according to Nino, and Sho refused to believe he might  _not_  have been talking about the tent) which meant they would have no access to electrical outlets, which meant all of his curlers, straighteners, crimpers, wavers and whatever the hell else he’d packed into the car, would be of no use at all…  
  
Fortunately, Sho valued his life enough to keep his mouth shut. Being abandoned half naked on the side of a deserted highway  _once_  in a day was bad enough, and he was not going to subject himself to the same experience a  _second_  time.  
  
After a minute of struggling to get the trunk closed again, Sho wandered back up to find the back seat positively filled with Jun’s (and a  _reasonable_  number of Aiba’s) belongings. There was no way he’d be able to fit inside if he didn’t want to be rolling out every time they hit a turn. He panicked for a second, turning searching eyes on the two up front as he wondered whether they _too_  would be leaving him behind.  
  
Jun smirked and gestured at the already occupied passenger seat, and Aiba beamed before opening the door for him and patting his own lap. “Do you prefer being on top or bottom, Sho-chan?” He grinned, giggling idiotically at the question he’d obviously intended to make dirty… and succeeded.  
  
Sho stifled a groan, not deigning to answer as he clambered in awkwardly and Aiba buckled them both up. Aiba’s knees were rather bony, but he forced himself not to wiggle around lest he prompt  _more_  embarrassing comments from the younger man’s mouth.  
  
Jun pulled out onto the open road, hair blowing attractively around his head as they picked up speed whereas Sho, who was sitting considerably higher than the other two and was now without sunglasses, was having his battered painfully around his face and into his eyes. Aiba raised his arms in the air, letting out an enthusiastic whoop as they whipped quickly around a bend in the road, and Jun reached out to turn on the stereo, blasting  _Thriller_  through the surround sound system he’d had installed. He began dancing in his seat and singing along in an atrocious imitation of the English language.   
  
Sho opened his mouth to ask if they could maybe turn it down a  _bit_ , as the stress of the last half hour was starting to pound away at his temples, only to have a bug smash into the back of his throat and send him into a violent coughing fit (which was also loud enough to make Jun yell at him and turn the volume  _up_ ) that didn’t completely subside for twenty-three (and a half) minutes, despite Aiba’s good-natured attempts to thump a hand-print shaped dent into his spine.  
  
It was going to be a long ride.

**Author's Note:**

> Please excuse any OOCness there may or may not be. This is crack, and I wrote it a long time ago when I was just starting to follow Arashi.  
> May or may not end up turning this into a series someday, because I feel like there's lots more crack to be explored.  
> :3


End file.
